Vietnamese Students

Here at Hong He University, there are several hundred Vietnamese students. Brian and I are each teaching an English class once a week to a group of Vietnamese students. The Vietnamese students we have in our class are motivated and fun-loving. I've enjoyed getting to know them. But since their English level is still rather low, we end up using Chinese to communicate most of the time. Americans and Vietnamese communicating to each other in Chinese . . . I just think it's a little funny. People say that Chinese is one of the most difficult languages to learn, but listening to my Vietnamese students speak to each other, I wonder if Vietnamese would be harder (pronunciation, not writing). There are six tones in Vietnamese as opposed to four in Chinese and it seems that the sounds of Vietnamese are more throaty and glottal which I think is harder to get used to. But maybe I'm just comfortable with Chinese now and it doesn't sound so foreign to me anymore. Brian and Caleb are thinking about getting someone to teach them some basic Vietnamese. They have my admiration for even considering it.

Here's a picture of me, Brian, Caleb, and Rachel with some of the Vietnamese girls that are in my class. (And in case you're wondering, no, I can't tell the difference between the Chinese students and the Vietnamese students. Neither can they until they hear each other speaking.)